


You never have to ask

by reogulus



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1948896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s late at night and Roka has planned to finish watching the whole game before going to bed, but he allows himself to be stuck between 40:32 and 43:17 anyway. The gentle mediocrity of the ball triggers something that makes his skin crawl; impulses of a memory long gone almost sending him on a night drive to his parents’ house, so he can overturn bottoms of drawers and closets for old tapes of middle school games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You never have to ask

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuruk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuruk/gifts).



> This fic involves two characters from the Kitamoto-Nanryou game that Tosei played in Roka's third year. As the scoreboard indicates, the cleanup batter + catcher is named Hirayama, and the nine-hole batter + pitcher is named Mitsui.
> 
>  
> 
> Everything else about Tosei in Roka's high school and middle school days came straight from elaborate obscure headcanons. Hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the fourth inning, two outs and the cleanup is up. Green grass and brown dirt surrounded by stands full of loud purple, brass instruments with ribbons of the same colour fluttering, blurred strips of pixel. The pitcher winds up, the batter goes completely still for the second, and you can hear the buzz of volume from the crowd going faint as the umpire calls "ball" before rising up again.

 

Upon his third viewing of this pitch's recording Roka turns the dial on the bedside lamp, the light dimmed to none. He'd done this ritualistically at the end of the previous two so it was already on the lowest setting.

 

He goes back and rewinds, eyes fixed on the catcher this time. An observation in vain and Roka knows it, because this was filmed by Mrs. Yano, who always arrives earlier than any other parent and sits squarely behind the home base every game with her tripod set up, chilled tea in hand.

 

Just this once, though—just this one mediocre pitch, Roka wants more than anything to see the catcher's face.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

For the past two weeks he's been gathering tapes of Haruna as the passage of time leads up to the scouting season, part of the volunteer research on contract law that he's taken on for the legal clinic at the university. It's Wednesday night at the Bijou dorms' dining hall and Roka has the tablet propped up in front of him, again, pacing the spooning of food into his mouth to the rhythm of the base coaches' shouts.

 

"You should chew before you swallow," Takii says, polishing his chopsticks with a piece of napkin.

 

"I'm chewing," Roka says as he chews, eyes glued to the screen.

 

"Chew more."

 

At last, Roka turns to look at him.

 

"So I looked up Hirayama the other day."

 

"Oh?" Takii picks up a piece of green pepper after a pause. "Thought your pet project is about Haruna."

 

"It is. But one of the tapes is kind of two birds with one stone," Roka pauses the video on the tablet and sweeps up the remaining bits of stir fry. "…or maybe three, if I could have seen the catcher better."

 

"I wasn't expecting you to expect me to talk about Tosei with you."

 

"Not Tosei. Just Hirayama. Do you want to know?"

 

Takii has one of those looks. "You’re going to tell me no matter what I answer."

 

Roka shrugs. “There’s nothing to tell, Takii. He gave up his scholarship last term to study abroad in Australia—civil engineering, if you would believe it. So now his university has some considerable flexibility in budget, and can probably offer the best player in the prefecture a better package than the rest—such as Bijou University. We got Takahashi Kou last year, but you can’t count on the same stroke of luck twice.”

 

Takii nods, makes no effort to hide the lack of a better response. On the TV hanging overhead, the sports news channel has begun the baseball segment. Roka sifts through the files on his tablet, and starts another rewatch on mute.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

He hits replay.

 

In the third inning of the semi-final game between Musashino and Kasukabe two summers back Haruna made a pitch to the home base that was more for the catcher than for the batter, which sent half of the senior population in the audience frowning.

 

It’s late at night and Roka has planned to finish watching the whole game before going to bed, but he allows himself to be stuck between 40:32 and 43:17 anyway. The gentle mediocrity of the ball triggers something that makes his skin crawl; impulses of a memory long gone almost sending him on a night drive to his parents’ house, so he can overturn bottoms of drawers and closets for old tapes of middle school games.

 

Roka turns the lights off and gets in bed with the thought that Takii will always, always be the first person to come to mind whenever he sees pitches like that. He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, tries not to think about what he is thinking. Slides open the lock screen of the phone and opens his email. Kazuki has said good night to him two hours ago. Roka types out a reply and then deletes it, realizing it'd be too late. Perhaps it's about time that having someone with a real internal clock sleeping next to him would be a good idea again.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

There’s an email sitting in Roka’s sent folder dated just under six weeks ago, addressed to a recruiter whom Roka did a little digging on after meeting at a reception. It was a tip about Takahashi Kou’s struggles with adjusting to university sports culture that all but spelled out a hint regarding the player’s anxiety and overeagerness.

 

He made the mistake of leaving his laptop unlocked when Kazuki was over at his place one night, and when his kouhai chastised him about the “unnecessary” mention of Takahashi’s girlfriend, Roka put on his best front of dismissiveness while secretly relieved that the email was in the sent folder and therefore immune to the delete button on drafts.

 

It’s just networking, he said to Kazuki. Do you send your thank-you emails without adding anything of value to incentivize a response that will actually, you know, lead somewhere?

 

Kazuki just looked at him like a freshman, which was a very different look than that of a high school freshman. Nevertheless, they both made Roka smile.

 

The truth of the matter is, he’d forego the first-mover advantage, if it means he can see farther and clearer than everyone else. But he can’t have everyone else opting for the same.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

Before the growth spurt hit, Hirayama was the shortest member of their middle school team, but he’d been the regular catcher since he was old enough to qualify by tradition. By ability, the position was due to him even earlier.

 

The second shortest on the team was Takii. The mini-powerhouse, regional opponents nicknamed the battery when they partnered as regulars. Roka got used to towering over everyone since he was twelve, and did some more getting used to in high school.

 

It was the spring of their second year in middle school league that Hirayama asked Takii to pitch to him with regulation balls. Roka overheard the conversation out the door of the locker room when he went back to retrieve something he’d left behind that day, and Takii said yes without missing a beat. The very next day Takii told Roka about the arrangement and asked Roka to stand on guard for them when he and Hirayama stayed behind to do their extra practice. Just in case, he said.

 

Takii was his only friend on the team back then. There wasn’t room for a no, nor did Roka have the foresight to see where Hirayama’s overeager impatience would lead.

 

In the months that followed Roka watched from the fences every Friday night, watched as the pitches picked up speed and the catches became more accurate, with the curves growing more level as did Takii's breath. Takii remained his friend and Hirayama a near-stranger. Then came a time when Hirayama called out to him, and headed for the field. Takii followed him out of the bullpen, then made a beeline for the mound.

 

We’re ready, was what Hirayama said. Will you be the umpire, Nakazawa-kun?

 

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

The TV in the dining hall is playing baseball news. Someone got rid of the remote control so long ago that Roka had never seen the channel changed to anything other than sports news, nor any attempts to change it.

 

The large room is empty at three in the afternoon. Takii is out there running with the team and Roka has his laptop open, sitting in his usual spot for dinner, taking care of nothing that he can’t leave until later.

 

I’ll probably hand over the head coach position after next summer, so I can go for a teaching assistant position at the History department, Takii told him last winter in the same tone as we will aim for the best 16. Now the summer is almost over and Roka wonders if Takii will never actually do it unless someone tells him they will take over the team. Unless Roka tells him.

 

I’ll stay here until the debt is repaid, Roka remembers telling himself last year—rehearsing the verbal expression of conviction that he’d never be able to voice in front of Takii. Sometimes he wants to laugh at how hard they both try at the exact same thing the outcome of which depends on the very notion of passivity from their ends. Takii wouldn’t get it, let alone finding it funny. Meanwhile, everyone here at Bijou thinks the status quo is going to last.

 

Maybe things would have been different if he did give in and joined the huddle when the reporter took Takii's picture for her article.

 

He types Takii’s address into the recipient line, leaves the subject line blank, and pastes the link to the job posting from the History department website in the body of the email. Clears the thought from his head as his outbox empties.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

The summer after his last summer of high school Roka got a new phone number. His contract was two months shy of expiration, still, but there were just too many names that would give him a headache whether he deleted them or left them alone. He left the old SIM card somewhere he took care to remember to forget.

 

Between his new number and moving out for college, Hirayama emailed him, Mitsui came by his house, both to say goodbyes in an unbeknownst competition for brevity. At the train station that morning he saw Mitsui off because it was what Mitsui needed before his first venture outside of Saitama, a goodbye with someone who’d grown up getting used to goodbyes. On the way back Roka saw Hirayama, too, holding a small luggage and talking to his family who would see him off on a trip approximately a quarter of the length of Mitsui’s. They made eye contact across the five meters that set them apart, and Roka looked away before he could raise his hand to wave.

 

And then there was Takii. But Takii never left.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

At the time Roka was writing the entrance exam for Tosei High School as a formality, Takii was in rehab nursing a thrown-out elbow, early acceptance applications already faxed everywhere that was not Tosei.

 

It was the bottom of the eighth inning that they had to take him off the mound for treatment, after Takii had denied them once in the sixth. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and everything on the field was suspended for twenty minutes. Takii was ordered out of the dugout and onto an ambulance almost immediately after preliminary inspection.

 

The coach looked to Hirayama and asked him about Takii’s daily pitch restriction during tournament season. In the silence that ensued, Roka moved out of earshot before Hirayama replied.

 

He turned to look at Hirayama from the other end of the dugout, when the coach dismissed the catcher at last. Their eyes met. Roka looked away.

 

Hirayama was a near-stranger turned near-friend. Either way, Roka thought to himself. He didn’t know that Takii held onto Hirayama’s contacts much longer than he did.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

“So this is it?” In the men’s restroom Takii pulls his ponytail loose, and pulls the hair back together again with the elastic between his teeth. “Your conclusion on Haruna is inconclusive?”

 

“Don’t sound surprised,” Roka dries his hands, “his team has always been an annoying dark horse. I’ll need to observe more data, but that takes time."

 

“Still, he’s his own person. And I thought you’re good at finding patterns,” the ponytail is up again and Takii’s touch is light on Roka’s shoulder.

 

“Yeah, well, you know. Some people don’t define individuality that way,” Roka tosses away the paper towel. “By the way, you need to cut your hair.”

 

“I told you,” the tip of Takii’s slipper touches his thigh in a mock kick, “I’m growing it for a wish.”

 

“Have you decided on one yet?”

 

“Nobody’s in a rush here, Nakazawa.”

 

“Right. There are so many things in your life that could use a break, after all.”

 

“Not things,” Takii corrects him. “People.”

 

He says as if he doesn't know some people are always restless, while others never rest.

 

 

 

◇

 

 

 

He stood behind the catcher’s box, and the outline of the moon was brightening up from just a silhouette. The smaller, denser ball made a heady sound in Hirayama’s glove.

 

Strike.

 

As he called the pitch, Takii’s eyes lit up brighter than the stars growing opaque.

 


End file.
